Fateme Hosseini, a member of the Iranian Parliament, pointed to the barriers posed by the US against Iran’s efforts to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.
“Thankful for your support & empathy & standings with us in hard times. My colleagues and I in Iran's Parliament do extensively work to mitigate various impacts of #COVID19 on Iranians, though US economic terrorism and unjust sanctions impede our efforts to cope with the struggle,” Hosseini tweeted on Friday night.
The remarks came in response to a tweet by President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Gabriela Cuevas Barron, who has expressed solidarity with Tehran amid the pandemic. “I wish to send #Iran’s Speaker of Parliament, Mr. Larijani, my most sincere expressions of support and solidarity as unfortunately he has been positively diagnosed with the coronavirus #COVID19. I also stand in solidarity with the MPs. We will get through this together,” she wrote.
Iran is one of the worst-hit countries by the virus with 53,183 confirmed cases and 3,294 deaths as of Friday.
Meanwhile, the imposition of unilateral sanctions against Iran by the United States since its withdrawal from the JCPOA has blocked Tehran’s access to its resources outside the country while also banning Iran’s banking transactions which hamper the country’s efforts to buy necessary medical equipment amid the outbreak.
Many countries and international bodies have called on the Trump administration to lift the sanctions but the White House has not yet taken any effective step to remove the sanctions while also introducing new ones last week.